The present invention relates generally to the field of medicine. More particularly, the present invention relates to an online system and method for providing to health care professionals continuing medical education and assessing their skills and competency.
Knowledge is crucial in the medical field. In order for health care professionals (e.g., doctors, nurses, biomedical engineers and administrators) to best manage their patients"" health, it is important for them to stay up to date in their field of practice. Relevant knowledge includes information on the latest research and development for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of various illnesses. Medical diagnostic imaging systems provide invaluable tools for identifying, diagnosing and treating physical conditions and greatly reduce the need for surgical diagnostic intervention. In many instances, final diagnosis and treatment proceed only after an attending physician or radiologist has complemented conventional examinations with detailed images of relevant areas and tissues via one or more diagnostic imaging modalities. Accordingly, educating and training health care professionals as to both general and specific health care topics, including special features of and the use of particular diagnostic systems, are desirable to improve both productivity and patient care.
Typical channels through which such information is dispensed to health care professionals include classroom training, audio and video tapes, CD-ROM, medical symposia, seminars, journals and other publications. One disadvantage of classroom training, symposia and seminars is that they are only offered at certain times, which may conflict with an interested health care professional""s schedule. And although journals and other publications may provide a wealth of information, the information contained in these publications may be difficult to locate and not readily accessible to all health care professionals. Online courses have become available, however, none of these channels of information provides an initial assessment of a health care professional""s skills nor keeps track of those skills or training that the health care professional gains. This assessment and tracking information can aid both health care institutions and professionals in assessing the skill levels available to best meet the needs of their patients. In addition, maintaining a record of a health care professional""s skills or training can facilitate a means to identify the pool of available knowledge at a health care facility, as well as enable monitoring of continuing education courses and credit for satisfactory course completion.
There is a need, therefore, for a system and method for educating and training health care professionals that includes a way of assessing their skills. The system should be easily accessible and provide information on a wide range of topics. It is also desirable for the system to maintain a record of the skills of each health care professional and the training that the professional receives. This record can assist health care institutions to determine the skill levels of their staff as well as aid health care professionals to plan necessary continuing education courses. The system may also be linked with state licensing entities or other organizations to facilitate credit for continuing medical education.
The present invention provides a novel approach to educating and training health care professionals. The invention is directed to an online, interactive method for training and testing health care professionals who are located at remote sites. The method includes storing competency tests and training courses on machine readable media and establishing a network link with a remote system. The remote system can be a workstation (e.g., a personal computer) or a diagnostic system with an interactive platform, which enables an end-user to search and select competency tests and training courses as well as to store a personal record of such information. In accordance with one preferred embodiment, the competency tests and training courses are stored at a central training facility and are accessed from a remote diagnostic system or workstation via the interactive platform and an intranet. In accordance with another preferred embodiment, the information stored at the training facility is accessed from a workstation at the remote facility via the Internet. The interactive platform of the medical diagnostic system comprises a web or network browser, which enables the end-user to search and select competency tests and training courses directly from the operator""s console.
The present invention is also directed to a system including a central training facility, a plurality of remotely located workstations and medical diagnostic systems, and communications circuitry for establishing connections therebetween. The diagnostic systems may include different imaging modalities, such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR), nuclear medicine (NM), ultrasound, and x-ray (both conventional film and digital or digitized imaging). Preferably, the central training facility includes competency tests and training courses geared toward a variety of topics, including operation of the scanning equipment, how to perform patient examinations or how to review images for each imaging modality. The tests and courses are preferably classified by profession, specialty, imaging modality, and so forth. The system can also be linked with a state licensing entity or other organization to provide a health care professional""s transcript or record of completed courses and facilitate credit for certification and continuing education.